Eco Housework: Any Takers?

There's a new way to avoid housework now: "I'd do it, but not if I have to be all environmental about it!" Eco-laziness is the new learned helplessness. Well, in my family anyway....


"I'd do the laundry all the time if I could just put it all in the dryer." I am a bit fanatical about the dryer because it's the biggest unessential power-hog in the house. (I think the fridge is essential.) I keep it around for the wet bed and blankets in the middle of the night in the middle of winter washing that still happen occasionally. We have a tiny bathroom, but I found a way to hang laundry in there: big stuff on closet bars and small stuff on a rack in a closet. Nobody's as pleased as I am about this. Curious.

"I'd take out the garbage if I could just shove it all in a bag and walk it to the curb." Apparently, I'm the only person to my family's knowledge who sorts garbage. I live in an environmentally-intense neighbourhood, so I find that hard to buy. I put the garbage (mixed materials like plastic attached to foil, and styrofoam only) at the back of the under sink cupboard to make it harder to use it as a dumping ground. The composter, green bin (meat, cheese, kleenex), and bag of bags all go in front. Many people don't realize we can recycle plastic bags in the blue box, but we can. I have a sign on the cupboard door telling people what goes where, but I still end up explaining it every day, or they just leave stuff on the counter for me to figure out later. It's not rocket-science people!

"I'd totally mow the lawn if we had a gas mower, or clear the walk with a snowblower, or rake with a leaf blower." First of all, leaf blowers should be outlawed for being the most inefficient and obnoxious way to move leaves and dirt around. And this is all good exercise in the great outdoors, right?

"I'd do all the dishes if we had a dishwasher." Some people still think dishwashers are more environmental than hand washing because of this study. They looked at how the average European washes dishes and found dishwashers use less water and electricity. But I'm not average, and you don't have to be either. I wash dishes at home the way I was taught to do camping which takes about 1-2" of water in the bottom of our small sink. And I use cool-ish water. To be hygienic enough to stop food-borne illness, Health Media Lab insists the type of soap and the temperature of water don't matter as much as the rubbing. Scrub the dishes, sink, counters and your hands with mild soap and warm water. Some further issues with the study: For the average person, the dishwasher uses less soap, but the soap it uses is much harsher for the water system. It takes a lot of resources to make each automatic dishwasher whereas I came pre-assembled. And the Bonn study project partners were dishwasher manufacturers. Need I say more.

"I'd volunteer if I could get a ride there." I grew up with eight people and a pink Volkswagon Beetle. Mom didn't drive us anywhere. But nobody's mom did, so it wasn't an issue. If you want to take lessons or go to a friend's place, you have to get there yourself. But I also remember quitting piano because I got attacked by kids as I walked home alone every week. I tell my kids to walk in groups.

Driving, dishwashers, dryers....: they all save a bit of time, but how fast do we need to move? I have the best conversations with the kids doing dishes or while we're walking home from the grocery store. And don't get me wrong, I'm dead lazy. I don't own a vacuum cleaner or an iron. I'd always rather read than clean, so if I can muster the time to do it, surely others can too. It's easier for me, perhaps, because I see the rewards so much more clearly than the punishments: the lower electricity bill, the fresh air, the camaraderie of working together...

After watching No Impact Man together, I think I've been able to convince my guy to do a couple things: turn off the computer (and power bar) when he's not using it, and use a travel mug. Not only will the travel mug be great for the environment, it'll save me from kicking away all the non-recyclable Tim's cups from my feet whenever I'm a passenger in his car. Teenagers are a different hurdle.

Part of the problem in our world is what we consider acceptable cleanliness. We have an obsession with the immaculate. It's much easier to be an environmentalist if we lower our standards of cleanliness. If we can tolerate or even learn to appreciate that little stain on our shirt, or the few lines of grass that keep hiding from the push mower, or how the sunlight is filtered through the cats' nose-spots on the windows, then we can get a lot more reading done.

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Meaningful Agreement!!

Okay, it might not be much, but it's something! The U.S., China, India, and South Africa reached a meaningful agreement today. I was hopeful, yet really expecting pretty much nothing. So something happened, we don't know the details, and apparently Canada wasn't involved. Stay tuned for more updates!
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No Impact Man Comments

Comment below if you've seen the movie. Let us know what you thought!

ETA: Come to my house, Tues. Dec. 22, 8:30, to see the movie!

I just got home from our premiere showing....


First of all, ON THE EXPERIENCE of hosting an international film premiere: We wanted to make the event as low-impact as possible. We bought cloth hankies to sell instead of using paper napkins. We got non-waxed, 100% post-consumer waste, recyclable paper bags to fill with popcorn. And we sold Jones Soda which uses real sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup which is in almost every other kind of "juice drink" and pop.

I expected to get the movie last week sometime, and I started e-mailing nervous notes to the organizers every night since Friday. Last night they e-mailed to say they FedExed me another copy of the movie to my home. That was great, except the film was supposed to come with extra copies and books we could sell to re-coup the cost of the film. No great loss. Today I got home to find a FexEx note on my doorknob, but instead of the usual "you weren't home, come pick it up at the nearest post office" kind of note, it said they'd come back to try delivering it again the NEXT DAY!

People were coming at 7:00 to see this movie, about three hours from then, and I really hate to disappoint. I called FedEx a bit flustered, and they said I could pick my package up from their main office after 6:00...in Cambridge. Did I mention I don't have a car? Google maps says it would be about a four hour walk. So I had to compromise the low-impact thing by getting a cab to get the movie to me. It finally arrived at 6:45.

While we were waiting for the film and patrons to arrive, we got the popcorn ready. We didn't want to use microwavable popcorn because it's highly toxic. It's pretty much like scraping the teflon off a pan and eating it with melted butter and salt. See this video if you need more convincing. We typically eat Smart Popcorn, which is crap, but not toxic crap, so I haven't popped popcorn since I was a kid. I was pretty sure I still had the skills necessary for the job.

I was wrong. I shook that pot until I was hot and sweaty and nothing popped. I had to pass the job on and take a break. I remember that rush when it finally starts popping, but I didn't remember that it takes a good twenty minutes. We got out our bags to start filling and ended up with one bag worth of popcorn and lots of unpopped kernels. I know there's a technique to it, but we didn't have time for me to figure it out. So our low impact hopes took another hit as I ran to the store for big bags of chips to re-bag and sell. The grease from the chips immediately soaked into the paper bags, but the effect wasn't overly disturbing.

The Facebook Event page said we could expect thirty confirmed guests and 105 maybes (which are really just people too polite to say no). Well, about half of the confirmed were unavailable for the evening after all. We made enough money to pay for the film's cab fare and about a quarter of the cost of viewing rights. Damn independent films! I don't think I'll be hosting another film anytime soon.

ON THE FILM - **spoilers galore**: I love this movie. I think I'll try to host another viewing in my living room over the holidays and maybe get my OneEarth club to watch it after school one day since only one person from the club could actually make it out tonight. We really should have shown it last week in the library instead of waiting for the one night we could get the auditorium. But then there's no way we would have had the film by last week!

Colin and Michelle are a very real couple, but also very reasonable people. The film didn't just show the crazy stuff they were willing to do, it got to the heart of and tried to understand many issues to do with activism in general:

* Colin was seen as an extremist hurting the cause - a loony fanatic. He was slammed by environmentalists for making them look bad. Instead of showing how easy it is to be environmental, he was shoving a bigger reality in their face - that we're consumer junkies hooked on crap, and we'll do anything to avoid seeing that for what it is. People will fight to maintain this addiction. Be warned.

* Michelle was obviously really hurt by how much people hated them for this experiment. "Why do they hate us so much?" she asked several times. There are few social rewards for doing what's right. Anytime someone acts with integrity, goes an extra mile, it makes the rest of us look bad. They're deviants for refusing to fit in with the status quo. We have to hate them to maintain balance in the system we're all sucked into to relieve ourselves of cognitive dissonance. Either that or we have to change our lives. Hmmm...

* Michelle, we find out near the end, writes for a business magazine supporting all the capitalist consumerism that got into this mess in the first place. When confronted with this irony, Colin is forced to look at his efforts on a larger scale than just cutting back personal consumption.

*The grief that Michelle expresses for losing her wants, that she missed that part of herself, is an important part of the transition to be seen. Even when we're improving, any change is hard, and it leaves behind something we'll miss even if we hated it when it was part of us. But after she struggled for months with the project, the best part was watching Colin hit a wall, and Michelle laugh out loud. I felt so badly for her at the beginning because Colin's disdain was palpable.

* Michelle's epiphany at the farm is a whole other post.

* Beyond the environment, their relationship was lovely to watch. I never showed my students the film Garbage after I bought it for just that purpose because I couldn't stand the bickering between the couple. These two don't bicker; they discuss intelligently. That's rare to see on the big screen. But in Michelle's quest for a baby, when Colin finally gets that she needs her desires supported too, I was surprised that he didn't once mention the environmental impact of having kids. Maybe that would have been hitting below the belt, but most environmentalists see the population explosion as the number one problem. This raises the conundrum many couples face at one time or another: what do you do when your dreams are oppositional? I don't think it was just that he was so into his project he forgot to pay attention to his wife's project - and I love how she convinced him to get rid of the pots - that makes "I'm willing to discuss it" as far as he would go for some time, but that her goal of a second child is antithetical to his goal of being no impact. Then what do you do?

I'm still working on convincing my guy to turn off the power bar to the computer so all the little red lights go out at night. Baby steps.

After the film, we had a short discussion. Students commented mainly on the missing steps in Colin's plan. The first comments were about wanting to see them make it through winter without electricity. They stopped the project in November, and Michelle seemed to spend most of her time under a comforter. Colin shunned electricity and fossil fuels, but wait, didn't he use the stove? Some were concerned with breathing in all the candle smoke. I'm pretty sure they were beeswax which isn't a problem in that sense, BUT what about all those matches? Ah HA! And they have a dog nobody mentions. Is it a vegetarian dog? And what did they do with the dog poop? Did it end up with the worms? Is that why they got flies? And how come nobody ever mentioned hot water? I think they had some!! They were showering, the buggers! Colin and Michelle weren't extreme enough for this crowd.

I was particularly impressed that they changed to cloth diapers with a toddler. First of all, it's hugely impressive to me that they did this with a kid mainly because all my excuses hinge on my children. "If I didn't have kids, I wouldn't have any garbage." That sort of thing. And I had all my kids in cloth diapers but since birth. I never knew any differently. To be used to disposables then switch takes this commitment to a whole other level. Most people were struck by the lack of toilet paper, but much of the world does without just fine - some use a cloth, and a good 30 or 40% of the world use their hand.

Colin's message at the end hit me. He posited what to do if you can only do one thing for the environment. I was guessing in my head, "eat less meat." And I was so engrossed in my obvious rightness, I barely heard him say, "Volunteer with a local environmental group." Nothing will happen until we re-engage with community. Hence, a neighbourhood viewing is a must! Pass it on.

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Only 48 Hours Left

It's almost 8 a.m. here, but it's two in the afternoon in Copenhagen. Yesterday protesters announced a mass rally would take place, and today, the morning news announced protesters were tear gassed, and they're not letting any other groups in including Friends of the Earth, who arrived to find their badges were no longer valid. The Prime Minister stepped in as head of the summit - a procedural move they say.


One of the main issues jamming the process is how much wealthier countries will help out poorer countries. Generally the developed countries have raped the land of the 3rd world, and left a mess behind. The G-77 want them to pay for the clean up. One of the problems, though, is that China's included in the poorer countries.

Obama is confident that an agreement will be reached. He's a make-it-happen kind of guy, so my money (and hope) is on a deal being finalized.

London's mayor says the green message has to sound less "miserable", in an effort not to "depress" people. "We've got to explain that a lot of the things we can do will actually be good for us and good for our economy and cut our bills and make life actually better to live." They're giving grants to make homes more energy-efficient. Well, it's a start.

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Spoof Announcement

A very convincing looking press release was issued today as if it came from Canada. It followed the IPCC directives on climate change reduction - 40% of 1990 by 2020, and 80% by 2050, AND it had a schedule of foreign aid related to environmental needs. Unfortunately it's just a joke.

h/t De Smog Blog

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CO2 as a Pollutant

A point of clarification: The word pollution is similar in use to the word weed. It's really just something we don't want. Both words describe contaminants that we try to eradicate or at least put the brakes on.....


Anything can be a weed. I actually plant clover in my lawn even though some people choose to dig it out. And sometimes a plant that I really like becomes a weed when it flourishes beyond my wildest expectations. Peppermint and ivy are two of my favourites. The peppermint is contained in the boulevard, so that's doing okay. But the ivy has completely taken over my front garden. I can't cut it back fast enough.

Many people insist we're all up in arms about nothing because CO2 isn't a pollutant. We need it to live. As much as I like ivy, as soon as it takes over another groups of plantings, it's officially a weed, and I get rid of it. Carbon dioxide is a pollutant as soon as it is in quantities that harms more than it helps. Right now there's so much CO2 that it's trapping the heat around the planet, and that's harming us. Even though we need it and it's good for us, it's flourishing in quantities greater than is healthy for the world, so we have to find ways to cut it back before it completely destroys our garden.

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Dollar Store Costs

I went into a dollar store today for the first time in ages. The smell assaulted my sinuses immediately - all those crappy scented candles and room deodorizers. And why do the lights always blink in there. Is it an intentional means to encourage people to be on their way, to speed shop? Do they just need to tighten a connection? It's lucky nobody had a seizure....


I needed to buy some little handkerchiefs, the kind I could easily pick up from a garage sale, but it's the wrong season for that. We're showing No Impact Man on Wednesday night, and we're trying to do it with as little impact as possible. We're popping organic corn by shaking a pot over a stovetop, and using 100% recycled paper bags for the pop corn. But we need napkins. Instead of paper napkins, we decided to buy some cloth ones that people could buy for a quarter and keep to use over and over again. We're trying to be trend-setters here. I would have cut up old receiving blankets to use instead, but people are stuck on new, and I figured nobody would be willing to wipe their hands on used flannel. Baby steps.

I found some for four for a dollar in different colours. They're perfect except, ironically, they came wrapped in plastic. So the total waste output is I think slightly worse than if we used the paper napkins, but it'll be better in the long run if people keep using them and are seen using them and inspire others to use them. That's what I'm going on anyway, so I bought by hankies and high-tailed it out of there.

The Price of a Bargain, by Canadian Gordon Laird, devotes a section to the "Dollar-Store Nation." Apparently, "...in 2003, roughly 49% of all American households with incomes of more than $70,000 regularly shopped in dollar stores." At least I'm in good company. But, for better or worse, it's all coming to an end as global power shifts to China. We've outsourced our jobs there because the labour was cheap. As they raise their wages, so far 20% increase in 2008 (279), we'll be saying good-bye to all those deals. And you gotta know that, "...some Chinese manufacturers still resort to with-holding wages, illegal working conditions, and child labour to meet the low-cost demands of export markets" (108). Melamine-flavoured milk anyone?

Actually, the melamine wasn't isolated to baby formula: "It has also been found in candy in several Connecticul stores, pretzels in Toronto, and instand coffee in B.C. - the coffee had melamine levels three times those of China's contaminated formula" (251). Another good reason to buy fair trade coffee.

On Apple manufacturing in Shenzhen, Laird says: "There is no other place on the planet that can reliably manufacture and broadcast millions of high-value products and still manage to pass along a healthy profit to Western companies" (107). BlackBerrys are still manufactured locally, by the way. I don't own any cell-phones or iPods; I don't even have a transistor radio. We can fight the push to fit in by owning whatever everyone else owns. It hurts the economy if we don't buy crap, but the economic system we're using is messed-up anyway.

Laird was interviewed in the Globe and Mail this weekend. He gave a good sound-bite that sums up the problem:

"The Achilles heel of our system is that it needs open, liberalized trade relationships, cheap energy and able, hungry consumers. And all of these things are being challenged as we speak. I don't think the consumers this year will show up for consumer duty in the mass numbers that we've seen in recent years."

Then he posited an analogy between running out of consumers and running out of oil. They both cause a downward spiral. We're stuck in a globalization gone mad without an exit strategy.

"The fundamentals of growth - cheap credit, offshore labour, affordable energy, and transport - will be depleted or become unavailable during the 21st century. This web of interdependence will not unravel itself gracefully: there is no going back to normal, no rewind or reboot on global trade" (7).

Beyond the facts and figures carefully researched and compiled, Laird's willingness to accept the burden of caring about a world full of people in crisis comes through in his writing. Remember Spiderman's motto: With great power comes great responsibility? That's a good line, and now we need a good superhero to reign this in for us.

Barring that unlikelihood, Laird concludes, "Sometimes things happen just because of deep inertia, not because change isn't possible. We are habituated to patterns: grocery shopping, foraging for deals, aspiring to better gadgets. There is nothing to suggest that we can't change this in favour of competitive conservation or extreme local commerce. Like energy efficiency, it's hard to imagine why we haven't done it sooner" (294).

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The Partridge Family Energy Plan

Remember that Partridge Family episode back in 1974 where they entered a contest to use less energy? Danny read the meter wrong and suddenly they realized if they didn't make drastic changes, their names would be in the newspaper under the label Energy Hogs. How embarrassing! No more blow dryers or electric toothbrushes for them as they scrambled to reduce energy. I always wondered where they got that six-person bike to do groceries with, and why they didn't realize car use wouldn't be calculated into their home energy usage. I'll never know.

But more to the point, recent studies have discovered that people will change their behaviour in order to keep up with their neighbours, and this tidbit can be used to curb GHG emissions...


We know three pertinent things about how people act, and psychologists have coined fancy terms to explain them. 1. Psychological Distance: We are horrible at judging the importance of distant events relative to our own lives. Plato and I call that an inability to measure. 2. System Justification: We love the status quo and will fight to defend it. We just want to keep on doing whatever we're doing. I prefer to call it inertia. 3. Finite Pool of Worry: We can only worry about so many things at once. Environmentalism typically peaks when the economy's on the upswing and people have more time and headspace to think of something outside their own little box of troubles. It's peaking now because it has to. But talk about bad timing. I call this behaviour self-absorbed. Sometimes it's necessarily the case that we focus on ourselves at the expense of the community, but if we're busy researching which iPod or BlackBerry to buy with the furnace at 23 and all the lights on, that's a different case. (Hint: Only buy electronics that will guarantee their coltan isn't from the Congo.)

Researchers say the best way to overcome these obstacles is to tap into the powerful desire to be like our neighbours only a little bit better. We are ruled by status anxiety. The Partridges figured this out 25 years ago! Maybe we'll pay attention this time.

In one 2007 study researchers hung four different flyers on doorknobs and monitored electrical use. One said to conserve energy to save the environment. One said save energy to be socially responsible. One focused on saving money. And one said that the majority of your neighbours are already doing it. Only the last flyer had any effect.

How do we jump on that bit of datum? In Arlington, the power company sends sheets that compare each customer's power usage to their neighbours with similar sized houses, and offer tips for catching up. Brilliant! It's personal transparency. If we think others will find out we're energy hogs, we'll scramble to get on board with the new and improved way of living.

And Mayors are getting on board already working towards making their cities the cleanest, fighting for that status as a eco-city. It's great that all the big-wigs are in Copenhagen, but we also need a bottom-up approach unique to each city. Write your local Mayor and energy company to make it a reality.

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Climate Change Truthiness

A few people out there are working really hard to educate the masses about climate change, yet The Record's letters to the editor are still full of concerns that we're going to waste a ton of money unnecessarily since climate change is obviously not really happening. Look how cold it is outside today! We need to spend more time doing more studies to find the Truth...


It was years ago that the common vernacular was changed from global warming to climate change precisely because people were making this very error. They'd look outside at the snow and balk at the idea that the globe is warming. But a name change is not enough. To convince people that there is a tragedy in our midst and the solution will necessitate an inconvenient change in the way we live, you pretty much have to hit them over the head with the facts because nobody wants to believe it's true.

There was a psych study that found, "...if someone set out to draw up a problem that people would not care about...it would look exactly like climate change." They call the fact that people focus on the immediate gains of today and lose sight of very long term planning "psychological distance": "...there's a sense that this is a problem for somebody else or some other time." Almost 2,500 years ago Plato noticed the same common human malady, but he called it an inability to measure, and he insisted teaching the skill of measurement, recognizing that distance (time or place) doesn't decrease the importance of issues even though it appears to, should be the focus of curriculum in every school. I'm not sure it's a teachable skill, but that's a post for another day.

Jeffrey Simpson pointed out that "...even a senior minister in the Harper government stated as fact that the atmosphere was cooler today than in 1998, the inference being that climate change was a hoax...." The weather oscillates all the time, but climate changes very slowly. We can't just look at the last ten years to find a trend; we have to look at the world over the past several hundred years to notice that things are dramatically different in our atmosphere.

And, he continued, that the Arctic is changing faster than anyone predicted. We once thought an ice-free Arctic would be the result if we keep on doing what we're doing for about 100 years. Now we're down to 30. Less ice means less reflection of the sun, which means warmer land, and more melting, and a rapid release of gases trapped in the ice. Michael Healey adds that, even worse, there's billions of tonnes of methane gas locked in the permafrost (a misnomer we now know), and methane is 30 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. Yikes!

Thomas Homer-Dixon and Andrew Weaver had a half-page spread responding to the skeptics. They hit the four big issues of contention: 1. global warming has stopped, 2. warming is due to the sun's radiation, 3. the climate is always changing, and 4. scientific uncertainty is so great we shouldn't make any policies yet. To steal from the creepy future spirit of A Christmas Carol: Beware them all, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this last one, for on its brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.

I like that line so much it's in bold and italics! It's especially fitting because the one to be feared the most is ignorance. If we decide not to act until we have everybody convinced that this is a problem, it will be too much of a problem to act on anymore, and we will be doomed.

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Copenhagen Update

Here's a collection of news articles and info I found most interesting:

Most Exciting Related News: David Suzuki Video Contest

The OneEarth video is one of five winners!

Most Intriguing: Climategate


I keep trying to post comments at YouTube to respond to other comments, but they aren't showing up. The climategate issue is one I've been trying to debate. Here's some links that clarify the issue quite well I think: Deltoid, a science blog, on the code issue, and Real Climate who points out, "More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’, no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords. The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though."

Because Phil Jones resigned temporarily does not prove he's guilty. He's stepping aside pending the investigation. Because they got more research money in the past few years for doing climate research does not prove that they fudged documents to increase their research documents. Those are classic ad hominem circumstantial fallacies. Because it's beneficial to take a certain stance doesn't prove that he's falsifying data in order to take advantage of those benefits, it might provide a motive, but no body.

And in case people are still wondering, 1,700 scientists in the U.K. formally backed the theory that climate change is caused by human activity.

Runner Up: The Danish Text or Climate Debt

A Danish proposal that was leaked to the media suggests that, "...emissions from developed nations should be reduced by 80 percent by 2050 compared to 1990 levels." It recognizes that the developed countries are the problem, and we will have to tighten our emission belts far more quickly than the developing world. In his book Heat, George Monbiot suggested a 90% decrease and a very thorough plan to get there. It's do-able, and it won't kill us, but it will be highly inconvenient. It involves lots of renewable energy, wind, water, and solar, and more efficient appliances and vehicles, and less driving, and way fewer plane trips. There's a whole chapter on grocery stores and the massive energy loss that could very easily be stopped with insulated closed doors on the freezers. And more attention must be paid to better ways to heat homes.

Gwynne Dyer agrees. He uses a slave analogy: "You can’t say let’s reduce slavery, let’s find a compromise and reduce it 50 per cent or 40 per cent.” It has to be let's stop oil and coal subsidies and turn our attention to renewables. But, he continues, "Almost everybody involved knows what the one really fair and effective deal would look like, although they feel doomed to settle for something much worse." The rich countries, that would be us, have to take the deepest cuts - far deeper than Harper's proposed 20% of 2006 levels by 2020 along with a cap and trade system. (This is another bit of news - Canada's the only one who's using 2006 as the base. That equates to about 3% from 1990 levels - the base everyone else is using. Oh Canada.)

Naomi Klein also agrees in Rolling Stone - but unlike Gwynne, who thinks the summit won't do anything, Klein thinks it's the optimum place to get everyone involved: "...a chance to seize the political terrain back from business-friendly half-measures." I agree. And really, what else have we got to work with?

Here's an excellent primer on the cap and trade system by the people who brought us The Story of Stuff:




And In Canada....

The big debate is whether or not carbon emission debt should be equalized or if Alberta should have to cut back the most because they're creating the most.

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Day Two

This is the hottest decade on record according to the World Meteorological Association. Nigel Lawson can keep on telling himself that it's not continuing to warm, that we've peaked and are holding. But how long will the hold pattern last? Maybe a decade, with warming increasing rapidly after that. Yikes.

Obama declared that GHGs are harmful to human health. This is important because it means the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can order emission cuts without approval from congress.

See OneClimate.net for live coverage of the day-to-day events taking place during the conference.

The Mayor of Copenhagen sent postcards to hotels asking delegates to refrain from having sex with prostitutes during the conference: "be sustainable, don't buy sex." I'm not sure how sex is unsustainable; it seems to have sustained us for millennia without affecting the climate, but the sex workers have turned the campaign to their advantage by offering one free service to anyone who brings in a postcard.

And the OneEarth video has been entered in David Suzuki's video contest. Vote here for "KCI sends a video letter to the Prime Minister."

That's it!
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More Green Bin Concerns

France Gelinas, an NDP MPP, wrote a letter to the editor of the Globe and Mail on Ontario's proposed new green bin guidelines that "...would allow sewage sludge laden with pharmaceuticals, pathogens, heavy metals and flame retardants to be mixed in with so-called 'A-grade' compost and spread on...farm fields." (Sorry I can't find a link to the letter.)

Organic food is still organic if it's sprayed with sludge, so there's no easy way to make sure your food is clean. I'll be washing my produce more consistently now, but that won't remove all the potential toxins that we're going to grow the food in...


I know people now who used to compost in their backyard, but now prefer the convenience of the green bin, and pay for compost each spring instead of digging up their own for free. People love how easy it is; they love that it all goes away every week. I don't know how to get people to see the bigger system it's all a part of - until someone gets sick. Even then it has to be someone close to home and preferably young before people will be moved to action. Otherwise we think we can adapt to anything. I'm not so sure.

How badly do we need to divert meat waste and animal feces from the landfill that we're willing to do this to ourselves? If the green bin was just to hold waste from food that grows (no meat or dairy), then it really would be great on farm fields. Bury the meat and shit with the blister packs and candy wrappers. Or better, make blister packs and laminated foil illegal as packaging. That would divert a ton by volume.

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How Lucky Do You Feel....Punk?!

I went to the Munk Debate on climate change tonight, and I even got a few seconds on CTV news (with another video plug) talking about the importance of the issue.

The question for debate, in a nutshell, "Is climate change the most important issue in the world right now?" The players: On the pro side: Elizabeth May and George Monbiot - I finally know how to pronounce his name (Mon-bee-oh - I previously always made him sound French). On the con side: Bjorn Lomborg and Nigel Lawson....


Oh, Elizabeth. She's hilarious, and I love her passion, but Bjorn got the best of her, and the moderator cut her mic at one point while her arms were still flailing. The worst part of that is it's the stereotypical hysterical woman or, maybe worse, the stereotypical Canadian politician who feels free to lose composure in parliament. Not so good for our side - of the ocean, of the sexes, or of the debate. She had some of the best points, a great variety of facts at her fingertips with sources to back them up, but I'm afraid they'll not be what people most remember.

The debate itself was problematic because Bjorn doesn't seem such a denier. He was the weakest link academically and logically using ad hominems and straw man fallacies, but he was of the people in a t-shirt and jeans, admitting that he doesn't know all the fancy words others were using. That will get him lots of points with the general public. He threw out a few claims without backing them up, and having read lots on the topic, they really were out of left field. But, unfortunately, for anyone who isn't reading books on the environment in every waking moment, the information was presented with enough confidence that it appeared compelling. For the purposes of the debate, he had a strong position against the original question, but beyond that, he failed to provide any useful or intelligent information. Not many environmentalists would disagree that we need solar technology - his primary mantra.

Nigel had some very clear and important concerns with a few errors made by the IPCC. His was a truly pivotal argument because if the environmentalists make any tiny error anywhere, people will throw them out with the trash. People really really don't want to believe it's all true, so they'll jump on the minor problems as a means to dismiss the entire argument. They did it with Gore. And Nigel did this very clearly coming across as intelligent, articulate, and knowledgeable - to the world's detriment.

Monbiot was already my hero, now I totally (heart) him. He was clear, intelligent, genuine and impassioned. He was composed, yet able to take down the opposition with very strong points.

Beyond the "theatre" of the evening, here's a synopsis of the main points of the four in groups, in the order they spoke, instead of as a debate - from my biased vantage point and from my rough notes that I made with people chatting constantly behind me - with as many links as I could find (and with my editorializing in italics and parentheses) minus the many digs between the panelists. R indicates a rebuttal point...

Nigel Lawson

* The environment has become a secular religion refusing to tolerate dissent. When 100 scientists were surveyed by Von Storch they found only 8% of scientists think climate change is the most pressing issue.
- (It was an internet survey that was widely discredited as unreliable).

* There has been no further global warming this century (since 2000). Recorded temperatures are not continuing to rise. They are the highest ever, but they are not rising.
- (The best response to this is the ice-cube in a bowl analogy which nobody used. Leave a block of ice in a bowl of water to melt in the sun. Over the short term, the water and air actually get colder as the ice melts, but that doesn't mean the entire system isn't warming and it doesn't mean the ice isn't in danger of completely dissolving!)

* At worst, if we do nothing, living standards in the developed world will increased by 8.5 times instead of 9 times what they are today. That's not a catastrophe. At this time, during the worst depression since the 1930s, what we need most is cheap energy for our growth. Spending money on reducing emissions is not like buying insurance to protect us later; it's more like spending more on fire-proofing your house than the house is worth.

* Leaked e-mails by scientists have shown that even climate change scientists know it's all a sham.

* The only thing the IPCC was certain with regard to the effects on health is that climate change will reduce mortality from cold exposure. (- And increase mortality from heat exposure.)

R - On The Stern Review - They said it would cost 1% of GDP to fix climate change, but they later changed it to 2%. It was disregarded by most economists. (Bjorn's critique of it - the only criticism I could find quickly.) The figures are all assumed. Stern was being asked to justify governmental policy. It wasn't peer reviewed. It's the most extreme report.
- (When it comes to climate change projections, aren't all figures being assumed to some extent? Nobody really knows what's going to happen. It's all an educated guess. But it's not the case that your guess is as good as mine. The more educated, the better the guess.)

R - On peak oil - 29 years ago we were told there's only 40 years left of oil. Now they say there's only 40 years left. They keep finding oil. China isn't going to sign any global agreement. They are searching sub-Sahara Africa for oil. They're not looking for it because they don't intend to use it.

R - On decreasing food production after 3 degrees of warming. This is misleading: food production will increase until we hit the 3 degree mark. Then it will decrease only after that point. (An important clarification, but there's still a net loss in the long run.)

* Our greatest problem is poverty. Foreign aid helps, but economic development is better. I'm in favour of research and development of green technology.


Elizabeth May

* Experts from the IPCC should be here instead of us. And a better question for us is how should we act. Scientists surveyed by the UN claimed the top threat to the world is climate change followed by the water crisis.

* This is the biggest problem. In June 88, in Toronto at Our Changing Atmosphere - Implications for Global Security, Canada was first internationally. (She quoted the first line of that report, more or less: climate change is 2nd only to nuclear war as a threat.) And Thatcher said in 1990 that "...the threat to our world comes not only from tyrants and their tanks. It can be more insidious though less visible. The danger of global warming is as yet unseen, but real enough for us to make changes and sacrifices, so that we do not live at the expense of future generations." I spoke with the king of the Lasutu who have the 3rd highest rate of HIV/AIDS. I asked if it's wrong to spend on climate change instead of poverty or AIDS. The question angered him, and he replied that climate change makes HIV/AIDS worse every day because the people can't grow their own food anymore.

* Humanity has changed the chemistry of our atmosphere - we have over 30% more CO2 than in the last million years. We know this from dating ice with air bubble in it. We know we're doing it, and now we have to reduce fossil fuels and protest forests. We're currently at 387 ppm of CO2. The most it's ever been pre-industrialization is 280 ppm.

* Some are uncertain about climate change because it's hard to observe. Temperature can't be looked at year to year because of time lags. We have to look at temperature changes over decades to see that it really is being affected. Millions of square feet of arctic ice is gone - much faster than projected by the IPCC. In BC we see the pine trees dead because there hasn't been a typical cold snap to kill off the beetles.

R- On "climate-gate" - Scientists had e-mails illegally hacked. All people found is that they're having problems completely agreeing on their research. But many points are being taken out of context to make them look unsure about climate change in general. What they found was a discrepancy between NASA temperature figures, which suggest that 2005 was the warmest year with 2007 and 1998 tied for second, and the Hadley Center which found temperatures decreased after 1998, but they didn't include data from the Arctic. The scientists aren't questioning climate change, just a minute point of degrees. The only thing climate-gate has in common with Watergate is that what was stolen is immaterial; what's really important is to find out who the burglars are and why they're doing the stealing.

* We know enough that we have to act. We've run out of time for procrastination. We gave $4 trillion to help the auto industry, but we don't want to devote the same amount towards reducing emissions. We're calling for efficient technology like low flow tidal, but it's kept from the market because the payback time is long. We already have the technology to fix the problem, just not the political will. Canadians waste more energy than we use. We need to improve. We have to look at technology, but it starts with a commitment to move away from oil. The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones. We found something better and easier to use.

* We need poverty reduction as part of climate change reduction, more solar and wind as part of our strategy, and protection of the world's forests. The Amazon is asking for help to save its forests because of the illegal logging there. But the biggest issue is the one that's moving in an accelerating fashion. Once we lose the permafrost, nothing we do will help save us. The Arctic ice has an albino effect, reflecting the sun's rays back. The dark ocean will absorb more heat from the sun. We're headed for a dangerous positive feedback loop.


Bjorn Lomborg

* The question forces us into a false dichotomy - either climate change is the worst thing, or we're an enemy of climate change science. It's not our defining crisis - there are 3 billion in poverty and 4 billion without water. At the Copenhagen Consensus we look for where we can do the most good for the world, where we should put our money, and it's in nutrition, agriculture, immunization, and schooling of girls.

* We need to be smarter about climate change. The costs are phenomenal at $40 trillion. (For whom and under what time frame?) Buying the cure is much more costly than the illness.
- (The Pembina Institute estimates that for Canadians, reducing emissions by 40% will result in a decrease in GDP from 2.4% to 2.1%. That's like someone making $80,000/year and having a salary cut to $70,000. We'll notice it in a few less nights out, but we'll still be relatively well-off.)

* We need to invest in green energy technology. Only if solar panels are cheap will we solve global warming. We can't forget all the other problems. Don't promise cuts; promise R&D. We need to listen to scientists and economists. There's a right way to save species like making countries rich, so they'll protect their own forests. We need efficient technology, so people can live better worldwide. The same money that saves one person by decreasing emissions can save 5,000 people if it's spent on agriculture. The money we need to stop poverty would slow down climate change by six hours. We don't need to reduce emissions to help the AIDS crisis; we just need to hand out condoms! (I would like to see the sources for these claims.)

R - The Stern Review is disparaged universally by economists. The other research indicates damage from climate change at -1%, it will benefit us, to 4%; not 5-20% like Stern reports. And you can't just pick one economist to show it's true. Climate change is real, but the proposed solution is rubbish.

R - Even if China doesn't agree to change, they will reduce emissions by 40% anyway through efficiencies because of newer technology. (I find this one hard to believe too.)


George Monbiot

* How lucky do you feel? We must prepare for the worst case. The opposition's claims are more optimistic than all reports I've seen. Eight of the ten warmest years ever have been since 2001.

* The Stern Review (in full) found the cost of preventing climate change will be 1% of GDP; the cost of living with climate change will be 5-20% of GDP.
R - If the government influenced the report, they did it in the wrong direction. They asked how much it would cost to fix climate change and found it would be more than expected. Stern reviewed peer-reviewed literature to develop the report. It was an "uber-review."

* We can adapt for a few decades here with drip irrigation, air conditioning, and new crop varieties. But in the developing world they won't have access to new technologies. In some areas like Kenya droughts used to be every 40-50 years, now they're every 2-3 years. The people are adapting with AK47s. They're killing each other because they're desperate.

* I'm concerned with poverty, disease and hunger. And climate change exasperates all these crises. It increases AIDS because in Malawi, climate change causes drought. This forces the men off the land to find work elsewhere. They meet prostitutes and bring AIDS back to their families. It's not a choice between poverty or climate change. We don't need to take money for climate change from foreign aid. We can take it from coal/oil subsidies or from the money being used for the Iraq invasion. We spend very little on foreign aid already. The $3.2 billion spent in Iraq would bring solar powered electricity to all of Africa. We can help with poverty without power stations and mining fossil fuels which endanger the very lives we're trying to save.

* It's not a choice over costs as if we either spend nothing or everything on the climate. Just to maintain energy supplies from now to 2030, will cost $25.6 trillion. Because oil is in the hands of OPEC, it will cost a transfer of wealth of a further $30 trillion. It's not a choice of carrying on and not spending or spending. Either way we have to spend a lot, and that's if oil doesn't get depleted. A temperature rise of over 3 degrees will result in a net decrease of food. Our population will rise to 9-10 billion within this century. Already millions are going hungry even with a global food surplus. We can't create a false choice between climate change and poverty.

R- More agricultural technology will not mean more food if it stops raining for years. Our ecosystem doesn't respond to market forces the way some economists suggest it will. It's not just about what to do, but what to stop doing. If we keep eating cake, but add in a salad, we won't lose weight because of the salad. If we keep using oil, but add in a little solar, it won't stop the problems we're having. We need to bring people out of poverty with renewables. Instead of $30 trillion to OPEC, let's put it in new technology.

* This is not the time for intellectual games. It's the time for facing our greatest question without which we can't tackle any other question on the table: Do we carry on dumping costs on those not responsible for climate change, or do we pick up our responsibilities and produce a response to commensurate with that crisis?

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OneEarth Video-Letter to Stephen Harper

Finally, here's the OneEarth video-letter to Stephen Harper that I wrote about back here.

Before It's Too Late: Harper's Song



Partial Credits, Timeline and Thanks...

* Andrew Matheson and Janice Cooper came up with the idea of doing our own version of Will.i.am's "Yes We Can" video at an EcoSchools conference at the board office on Thursday, November 5th.
* India Mcalister and I wrote the words over the weekend.
* Mr. McGrath, Mrs. Mark, and Mr. Allt gave up a spare to play guitar.
* Janice, India and Thomas Putman came in one night after school to sing.
* Most of students in the OneEarth club sacrificed their MSIP classes on November 12th and 13th to film students in classrooms all over the school.
* Many many students and teachers gave up valuable class time to be filmed.
* Andrew and a few other students edited for hours over the following week.
* We showed it to the OneEarth group on November 23rd, and it was realized we need some sub-titles because some classes were too quiet and others weren't in unison enough to really hear with the guitar and singing mixed in. (And we thought we were done!)
* We premiered it at After Hours yesterday, and it was featured on CTV News!

* Thanks to Mr. Strangways for use of the video equipment and many many thank-yous to Mr. Papoutsis and his students for giving us the space and help needed to edit.

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Munk Debate on Climate Change

There's a climate change debate happening on Tuesday, December 1st in Toronto. The live debate is totally sold out, but there's a live feed being broadcast all over Canada. Locally, it's at the CIGI on Erb Street - attached to the Seagram's building.

The debate is part of the "Be it resolved..." series. This time it's "Be it resolved climate change is mankind's defining crisis, and demands a commensurate response." (Why mankind instead of humanity? So much for gender-inclusive language.) The debate features Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party, George Monbiot, author of Heat and Guardian columnist, Bjorn Lomborg, professor at the Copenhagen Business School and author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, and Lord Nigel Lawson, former Chancellor of the Exchequer and author of An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming who wants to abolish the IPCC and who is the father of Nigella Lawson, the most sensuous cook on T.V.

I've already read Heat, but I hope to at least skim the other two books before Tuesday. Of the four, I've only seen Elizabeth May debate, and she's fantastic. This looks to be one meaty line-up!

That's it.

ETA - The Globe and Mail had an interview with Bjorn yesterday. It's not as oppositional as I was anticipating. He thinks there's some benefits to climate change, which is a very half-full way of looking at it all, and he thinks we should focus on promoting solar power instead of focusing on reducing emissions. Of course we should.
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